Bruce Arnold

Exploring Memory Capabilities with Ear Training

Exploring Memory Capabilities with Ear Training

Q: I’ve been working with the Ear Training One Note Complete for a few weeks now, so I thought I’d check in with you on my progress. If I use a pitch pipe to sound the major second over a drone chord, I can certainly pre-hear and sing that pitch a short time later. After a 30-second delay, I pretty much bat a thousand. After one to two minutes, I hit sometimes and miss sometimes, I think depending on how distracted I got during the silent time. BUT — I couldn’t help wondering if I was really remembering the note’s harmonic character (i.e., a major second over a key center), or simply the absolute pitch (i.e., a D). So I checked my ability to remember a pitch WITHOUT a major-chord drone in the background, and found that I could actually remember the pitch for a significantly LONGER time (3-4 minutes barring significant distractions). I assume this is because, with the CD playing, I’m constantly hearing other pitches, so it’s harder to keep the target pitch in my head.As a further test, I tried changing chords quickly — that is, fixing in my head the sound of a D over a C major chord, then jumping to the F chord. I could not pre-hear or sing the G, even though only a few seconds had passed. This gave me further concern that what I was really hearing and memorizing was an absolute D, rather than the “sound” of a major second against a key center.

Maybe I’m overthinking this — a vice to which I will certainly confess — but tell me, should I simply keep playing the D over the C chord and trying to keep it in my memory for a longer and longer time? Should I use different chords?

A: This is great that you are exploring your memory capabilities I salute you for your exploration. You are correct that not having the other notes there will make it easier to remember the pitch. This also brings up the fact that actually learning perfect pitch is easier than learning good relative pitch. It is common for students not to hear the sound of the second but the absolute pitch they are singing. This just means you haven’t memorized the sound of the second yet and this is common. Don’t get discouraged just keep working toward your goal. What is great is that you have realized this and that is the first step to help you search elsewhere in your mind to find that unique sound of the second. The quicker a student realizes what you have found the quicker they improve so this is a good thing. What I would recommend is you use the Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing CD and stick with the second degree and try to sing it in every key. Make sure you let the complete cadence happen before trying to sing the second this is extremely important. For now you should concentrate on the second but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also work on the other notes using the same exercise as well. Think of it like this. You need to learn what all the notes sound like in order to truly know even one because your inner memory needs to know the field of sounds it’s trying to memorize. So do my recommendations and keep questioning yourself because this will help you improve quicker.

Bruce

It is also recommended that you read Bruce Arnold’s Blog at his artist site. It contains more discussion of the musical topics found in these FAQs as well as other subjects of interest. You will also find the “Music Education Genealogy Chart” located here which shows you the historic significance of the music education products found on the Muse Eek Publishing Company Website.